Phoenix police vice squad targets child prostitution

2005 case changed way police approach child prostitution

He had rescued a 15-year-old girl who had been abducted, held as a sex slave for 43 days and kept in a dog kennel.

Before that case, Sutherlin said the vice squad looked at booking juveniles arrested for prostitution as a burden.

"Booking juveniles takes two to three times longer," he told a crowd of about 100 at a recent presentation on child sex trafficking, at Paradise Valley Community College Black Mountain campus in Scottsdale.

When the night vice squad sergeant emerged from the apartment in November 2005, standing outside were his commander, the police chief and an assistant mayor, along with the media. The case received national attention because the girl was repeatedly raped, beaten and sold over the Internet.

"It hit me. I'm doing my job wrong," Sutherlin said.

He vowed to redirect the efforts of his vice squad and make child prostitution a No. 1 priority. Phoenix police officers partner with local and federal law enforcement task forces and agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Child prostitution can be a difficult subject and many times people don't want to hear about it, said James Miller, who volunteers with Streetlight Phx, an organization formed to eradicate child sex slavery.

Miller now speaks to groups about Streetlight's three-tier strategy: awareness, prevention and after-care.

"Awareness is prevention," he told the group.

Sutherlin warned community members - many showed up after seeing a flier that Desert Ridge Marketplace is a possible target - that pimps can be anywhere.

"Pimps have a charisma about them," Sutherlin said. "Probably anybody can be a drug dealer, but pimps have to be manipulative and have the ability to control women to go out and sell their bodies."

Although Sutherlin hasn't worked any cases at Desert Ridge in northeast Phoenix, he cautioned, "Anywhere teens hang out, you're going to find predators. . . . It doesn't matter where the mall is located."

Some favorite spots that one pimp told him about are bus stops around charter schools.

"It was his favorite hunting ground," Sutherlin said.

The pimp targets girls with low self-esteem and begins the relationship as a romance, buying new clothes and items for her. "These girls are broken," Sutherlin said. The pimp also works quickly to get the girl away from her family.

Many times, vice officers will bust the underage girl and she has what Sutherlin calls the "1,000-eye stare." The girl is told by her pimp that if she is busted, she will be killed. "She thinks her life is over," he said.

It's the reason many girl runs away after getting arrested.

That's where organizations like Streetlight come in. Streetlight has six homes licensed through the Arizona Department of Economic Security where the girls are watched and given care to help in their rehabilitation.

The Internet has made child prostitution much easier. "It's in everybody's community because of technology," Sutherlin said.

Police once targeted prostitutes on East Van Buren Avenue in central Phoenix.

Now, detectives spend time on their laptop computers. The Internet is the new track, Sutherlin said.

Phoenix Sgt. Clay Sutherlin and Lea Benson, president and CEO of Streetlight PHX, speaks to residents during a community forum on child trafficking.

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Streetlight Phx

Streetlight Phx is one of the organizations that work with the Phoenix Police Department to provide safe housing for child prostitutes. Phoenix police Sgt. Clay Sutherlin calls it a "model for the rest of the country."

According to Streetlight's website (streetlightphx.com), the organization's mission is to eradicate child sex slavery through awareness, prevention and after-care. Streetlight provides long-term safe housing for minors rescued from domestic sex trafficking. At the Streetlight safe house, victims receive faith-based counseling, a mentor in a family setting, health care, food, clothing, educational and career counseling.

Collaborators include Phoenix police vice units and the Mayor's Office, Arizona State University, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, FBI and more than 70 churches Valley-wide.